Cadmus Eyren was a rather distractible fellow, and knew it. He attributed this self-awareness to why he was quite so good in school, having come up with systems to prevent himself from getting off task as a child with the help of his parents. Today, he had been given just the kind of assignment that he liked to do the least: a paper due by the following day. Writing was never that hard to do if he set his mind to it, but the monotony of sitting down to write something he was frankly not all that interested in was what usually got him. However, that would not stop him from excelling. He would not let it even if it cost him his entire day, which was why he was now heading to the library.
Once he got to where he usually studied, the sight of a certain someone stopped him in his tracks.
Aiko, as he knew from when they had all introduced themselves, was an elf. Now there was something that interested him. What was it like to walk around day after day having to deal with the implications of living far longer than most of the people she would see during the course of her studies? How old was she really? He walked over and sat down at the table she had chosen, given it was normally his first choice as well. The corner was quiet and had a nice sort of shade to it that helped him clear his mind.
With that, he got to reading:
Witch A and Witch B are trapped in an arena with attackers a_1, a_2, b_1 and b_2. Attackers a_1 and a_2 combat Witch A but will not harm Witch B. Attackers b_1 and b_2 combat Witch B but will not attack Witch A. This is known to all people in the arena. Witch A pulls the life from attacker b_1 as the price to instantly kill attacker a_1. Witch B pulls life from attacker a_2 as the price to instantly kill attacker b_2. Write at least five pages arguing if this scenario does or does not violate The Danger Of Magic. You may use any writing authored by She'var, Renui, or Levort to support your arguments.
Now that he had time to look at the prompt, he begrudgingly had to admit that the question was interesting too. Discourse on the first rule of magic was always fun because it often brought the other rules into it as well, and sometimes
Cadmus would childishly pretend to be in discourse with commentators while brainstorming his own thoughts. In this case, it seemed best to pick whichever side had the easiest argument. At face value, it was that no rules had been broken, but something felt off about that. He remembered something particularly good he had read once by Levort about how secondary prices exist but do not show commonly.
How did the witches cast a spell in the first place? Through magic. Magic that killed someone by using the life of another person as payment. However, what was the price to the witches for casting such a thing in the first place? If there was none, then the first rule of magic did not resolve for their spell and therefore a rulebreak was in play. Of course, that only made sense if secondary prices really were real and had any serious effect at all. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him: He had sat next to someone and said absolutely nothing.
Perhaps this was an opportunity! He could introduce himself, maybe make a friend, make the writing process more interesting, all that.
"Hello, Aiko. I'm Cadmus. I usually study here, so sorry if I freaked you out. Didn't know anyone else knew about this spot." he said, peeking over at her notes even as he asked the question. She'var and Renui were famously on the opposite sides of the spectrum when it came to the implications of magical conservancy, but perhaps that was the point.
"What are you writing about? I'm going to say that they were breaking the rules, mostly because their sacrifice spell should have done something to them for casting it, even if the life was paid for by another's death." he said, a grin forming as they continued to speak. He tried to keep to himself most of the time, so it would be nice to at least have one other kindred spirit.
